As a record-breaking heatwave scorched the Pacific Northwest last summer, anxiety grew with the temperatures.
Polls of residents in British Columbia – where the heat in some places exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit – suggest the disaster has caused an increase in negative mental health linked to climate change.
The results of the surveys, recently published in The Journal of Climate Change and Healthhighlight the growing concerns of mental health experts around the issue of “climate change anxiety” – a psychological response to the threats posed by climate change.
“We are hearing more and more from clinicians and community members that people are worried about climate change,” said Kiffer Card, a social epidemiologist at Simon Fraser University in Canada, director of Mental Health and Climate. Change Alliance and co-author. of the study. “And there’s really no formal guidance on how to deal with it or how to manage it.”
The Pacific Northwest heat wave hit Oregon, Washington and western Canada in the last days of June 2021. Temperatures soared across the region, breaking records left and right . Seattle and Portland hit all-time highs of 108F and 116F, respectively. And the tiny village of Lytton in British Columbia hit a jaw-dropping 121 F. Experts estimate that hundreds of people died as a result of the disaster.
Shortly after the end of the heat wave, scientists determined that the event would have been “virtually impossible” without the influence of climate change (Climatewire, July 8, 2021).
Anecdotally, Canadian news outlets reported that residents felt their anxiety increase as the disaster unfolded. Now the new study has the data to back it up. The survey results suggest that British Columbians were more anxious about climate change – and its effects on their daily lives – after the heat wave than they were before.
The study began in 2019, when Card and a group of other mental health experts began working on the question of how to monitor and research anxiety related to climate change. They eventually developed a protocol for a survey to monitor distress and anxiety in response to climate and weather events.
The survey includes 22 questions related to climate and anxiety. Topics range from general questions about how worried participants are about climate change to more specific questions about how worried they are about the effects of climate change on their work or home.
The researchers, led by Andreea Bratu of the University of British Columbia, collected their first set of survey results in May and June 2021, before the devastating heat wave hit. At the time, they had no idea disaster was coming.
“This was our pilot survey, just to test and see how it works,” Card said. “When the heated dome happened, we thought, ‘What a wonderful opportunity to test this!’ Because it has had such an impact on public discourse and people’s thoughts on climate change.
Each wave of the survey, before and after the heat wave, included over 400 respondents. All were recruited on social networks, including Facebook and Instagram.
The results suggest a substantial increase in anxiety following the heat wave.
Most participants said they were either ‘a little’ or ‘a lot’ more concerned about climate change after the disaster. The survey also indicated a significant increase in respondents’ fear that their jobs would be affected by climate change or that their place of residence would be affected by climate-related disasters.
“I think this is a wake-up call, hopefully for cities and towns across BC and really for all areas that are potentially experiencing climate impacts,” Card said.
According to the authors, the study is the first of its kind to investigate climate change anxiety using a ‘natural experiment’ – monitoring responses before and after an actual climate disaster. Yet it’s not the first book to sound the alarm about climate change anxiety. Other scientists have been documenting the phenomenon for at least a few years now.
The American Psychological Association, in partnership with the nonprofit organization ecoAmerica, has released several reports on climate change and mental health since 2014. The latest installment was released last year.
“Catastrophic events fueled by climate change impact individual mental health and include trauma and shock, PTSD, anxiety and depression,” the APA report notes. “Worry about climate change coupled with worry about the future can lead to fear, anger, feelings of helplessness, exhaustion, stress and sadness, known as eco-anxiety and climate anxiety. .”
The report adds that the effects of climate change are not homogeneous across the population. Certain demographic groups are likely to experience disproportionate impacts from rising temperatures and increased weather-related disasters. These include the elderly, homeless populations, Indigenous groups, and communities primarily made up of low-income people and people of color.
Members of vulnerable groups may be more prone to mental health problems resulting from climate change, the report points out, adding that structural racism and discrimination can compound these negative mental health effects.
These ideas point to a major limitation of the British Columbia surveys. The vast majority of respondents were white.
Survey participants also represented a fairly diverse sample of the population. Participants included nearly equal numbers of men and women, with a small number of non-binary respondents. Most were between the ages of 24 and 65. They represented diverse political leanings and incomes.
Still, the authors note in the study that the lack of racial and ethnic diversity is a limitation. Future research, they suggest, should explore how climate-related events affect the mental health of populations disproportionately exposed to the effects of climate change.
Climate change anxiety can have a big impact on important life decisions, Card pointed out. It can affect a person’s career choice, where they choose to live, or whether they decide to have children.
A better understanding of the public’s psychological and emotional responses to climate change can better equip experts to support them, he added. This kind of support can include everything from stronger climate action and more climate-resilient infrastructure to stronger mental care systems.
“Our hope is to show that it’s something that’s influencing people’s thinking now, that it’s disrupting people’s lives now,” Card said.
Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2022. E&E News provides essential information for energy and environmental professionals.
